The world premiere took place just under a year ago at the Noir in Festival, where it was the only Italian film in competition that edition. But after Ferine, a horror that debuts in cinemas on November 5, it has toured the world, finding its place in the programs of some of the most important genre festivals: from Canada’s Fantasia International Film Festival (where it won the awards for Best Cinematography and Best Original Score, awarded to Fabrizio La Palombara and Pino Donaggio) to Sitges in Spain, passing through the MotelX – Lisbon International Horror Film Festival in Portugal and the Imagine Fantastic Film Festival in the Netherlands. Not to mention domestic screenings at the Not Film Festival and the FIPILI.
A path of this kind, for our homegrown horror cinema (assuming there is such a thing as generic domestic horror cinema) is by no means guaranteed. Nor is it taken for granted that Ferine should emerge from a production perspective mainly under the aegis of EDI Effetti Digitali Italiani, a leader in Italy for VFX that also collaborates with Hollywood outfits such as Disney, Marvel, DC Comics, Warner, and 20th Century Studios, as well as with the major platforms including Sky, Netflix, and Amazon Prime.
An horror, as they say. A horror told as “an intense and moving story about the clash between the rational part and the animal side of our nature, and about how trauma can bring to the surface the deepest shadows of the human psyche.”
To learn more, here is the plot and trailer.
Ferine: the plot and the trailer of the film
Irene (Carolyn Bracken), a wealthy and refined art collector, sees her life upheaved by a tragic event that awakens in her a primal and uncontrollable instinct. A new nature takes over, destroying her privileged existence. Dama (Caroline Goodall), a mysterious dealer of exotic predators, is on the trail of one of her specimens that escaped captivity when she discovers something unexpected: Irene. In her she recognizes a new, irresistibly dangerous predator. A dark destiny binds the two women, driving them toward an inevitable confrontation.
Behind Ferine stands Andrea Corsini, a director and screenwriter who, after a short with Paolo Briguglia and Giorgio Carminati titled Non nel mio giardino (Not in My Garden), and an experimental documentary Societas Mortis, in 2019 wrote and directed the short film of the same name on which this first feature is based, which was presented at the Venice Critics’ Week (Settimana della Critica) before being shown at festivals around the world and earning as many as seven nominations for the Méliès d’argent for Best European Short Film.
From every point of view, Ferine is thus a film conceived with the ambition of a broad international scope, and this is confirmed by the casting choices: if the short featured Italian actors, for the feature Corsini wanted two native English-speaking lead actresses. One is Carolyn Bracken, an Irish actress not new to horror (she played the dual roles of the protagonists in the cult Oddity directed by Damian McCarthy); the other is the Anglo-Australian Caroline Goodall, a performer who has worked with some of the most acclaimed directors in world cinema, including Steven Spielberg (Hook, Schindler’s List), Renny Harlin (Cliffhanger), Barry Levinson (Disclosure), and Garry Marshall (Pretty Woman). Rounding out the ensemble are Paola Lanvini, Elisabetta Caccamo, Fabrizio Odetto, and Marco Gambino.
Ferine has a striking and singular personality that is capable of channeling and digesting cinematic references ranging from a masterpiece like Cat People (the 1942 Jacques Tourneur film produced by Val Lewton) to Raw by Julia Ducournau, passing through the Italian Giallo of Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci, and not neglecting a wink at Rosemary’s Baby. Across the Atlantic, the film has been hailed as “one of the most interesting debuts in genre cinema in a very long time,” and its director as a “terrifying new creator to watch.” All that remains for us is to go see it in cinemas, from November 5, thanks to Adler Entertainment (also involved in production).
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